'It's a mess,' San Marcos Unified says of grad-rate formula

SAN MARCOS -- When 571 students walked across the stage to
receive their diplomas at San Marcos High School in 2004, they were
missing 297 of their peers.

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The graduates were among the 868 freshmen who entered San Marcos
High in 2000, but within four years, 297 of those students either
dropped out, moved, transferred to a new school or simply remain
unaccounted for, according to school officials.

The school district, like many in the state, has never had a
system to track where missing students go. And when it comes time
to calculate how many students are actually earning a diploma, the
issue gets even more complex.

The San Marcos Unified School District, like most California
school districts, uses a state formula to report its graduation
rate. But it uses its own formula to measure its success.

However, using the state's system to track students and tally
dropouts has become a statewide problem, with critics claiming the
state is fudging graduation rates and providing districts with
flimsy numbers that do not accurately represent the state of the
schools.

The issue is coming to the forefront now with the federal
government's strict No Child Left Behind requirements, which force
schools to raise achievement for all students or face sanctions.
The law zeros in on test scores mostly, but also looks at school
district graduation rates -- using the state's formula. The
validity of those calculations, now more important than ever, are
being questioned.

Flaws in the system

Currently, the state has two systems in place to track students.
One system tracks the graduation rate, a figure calculated using
the number of students who graduate after entering high school. The
other system counts dropouts, or students confirmed by schools as
having dropped out.

San Marcos Unified uses the state's formula for calculating
graduation rates. The state divides the number of graduates by the
same number plus the number of dropouts over four years. San Marcos
Unified graduated 600 seniors in 2004. Over the course of four
years between 2000 and 2004, 268 students dropped out. So,
according to the state's graduation rate formula, 600 divided by
600 plus 268 equals a graduation rate of 81.7 percent for 2004, but
some question the accuracy of that number.

Recent studies by Harvard University, the Education Trustadvocacy group, and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Researchraise questions about that figure.

They all have accused states of using inaccurate and simplistic
formulas to calculate graduation rates. Such research has set
graduation rates significantly below the percentages touted by
states and school districts.

In some cases, research has shown that state formulas such as
California's can underreport graduation and dropout numbers by as
much as 30 percent.

"There are so many issues and the system is full of holes," said
Bob Harman, director of student services for the district. "It's a
mess. Every year the state tries to put a number on something
that's nebulous and none of these numbers are ever accurate."

Because the state does not take into account the number of
students who leave the school district within a four-year period or
fail to graduate within four years, the missing number of students
are counted against the school district, said Harman.

"They assume if they did not graduate in four years in our
district these kids are dropouts," said Harman. "Some of these kids
don't finish with us, some go on to continuation school, some go to
Mexico. The state wants accountability but does not know how to get
it."

Looking for answers

The Manhattan Institute, a public policy think tank, uses a
multistep formula to calculate graduation rates that is far
different than the state's.

When you figure that 868 students entered as freshmen in 2004
and 600 graduated four years later, coupled with the fact that the
district did see a spike in grades nine-through-12 enrollment -- 11
percent -- from 2000 to 2004, the graduation rate is actually 65.9
percent, according to the calculation created in the Manhattan
Institute study.

Specifically, the Manhattan Institute somewhat-complicated
approach takes the 600 students who graduated in 2004 and divides
that figure by an adjusted ninth-grade enrollment for 2000, 819 --
a number calculated by averaging the eighth-, ninth-, and
10th-grade enrollments over three years and factoring the
district's four-year growth rate of 11 percent.

The result is more than 15 percentage points less than the
state's calculated 81.7 percent graduation rate for the class of
2004.

The state spends almost a year gathering head counts for
graduating classes, thus figures for the class of 2004 are the most
recent available. State officials said the official 2005 numbers
will be available in the spring. Mission Hills High will not be
able to report any numbers until June, when it will have records on
its first high school graduating class.

Both the state and the Institute formulas are too "simplistic,"
said Harman, who spent nine years as principal of San Marcos High
trying to figure out accurate graduation rates for the school.

"As a society, we want a clean package," said Harman. "This
(Manhattan) formula does not account for a lot of factors,
either."

Harman said it is "impossible" to get accurate numbers from any
formula unless the percentage of students who take longer than four
years to graduate are counted separately along with the number who
transfer to continuation school and the ones who move away are
tracked.

San Marcos High School Principal Nancy Peterson also said she
does not rely on the state graduation and dropout rates and does
not see them as "valid" numbers.

"The state numbers do not accurately reflect our schools or the
quality of the education," said Peterson.

Peterson said school officials have become "frustrated" with the
state formula and for a number of years have used their own formula
to calculate the graduation rate at the school.

In order to monitor the graduates at San Marcos High, school
officials compare the number of seniors at the beginning of the
school year to the ones who actually graduate at the end to come up
with a graduation rate.

Peterson said the school does not measure the stability of the
population over four years because of the unstable number of
students who come and go.

Last year, the school had a 96 percent graduation rate based on
that calculation, said Peterson.

"It's not a perfect number, but at least it's better than a
four-year formula," said Harman.

A transient district

Every year, the school district has an estimated 30 to 50
students who leave without a trace, Harman said.

Although school district officials do not have a tracking system
in place, school counselors spend time making phone calls and
attempting to retrieve information about the student. A majority of
the time, they end up running into "dead ends," Harman said.

"There are all kinds of personal reasons why kids leave," Harman
said. "There is no way for us to get a good handle on it."

Harman said he estimates that more than 20 percent of the
students in the district who do not graduate usually decide to
complete their high school education at Palomar College or attend
adult school at San Marcos Elementary, which he says is always at
full capacity.

Harman said the other percentage of students who leave the
district are English-language learners who sometimes decide to
return to Mexico for their high school education.

"What makes it harder is that secundaria (high school) is not
required by law there," said Harman. "So, there is no way to track
those students when they leave."

Every year for the past five years, the number of
English-language learners increases by 3 percent in the district,
according to Charles Fitzgerald, district English-language
acquisition coordinator.

This influx has contributed to a rising transient population in
the district and an increase in the low percentage of students who
graduate at the end of four years, said Harman.

"The state needs to define these students not as dropouts or
graduates but count them as a whole new group," said Harman. "They
shouldn't count them against us, they should count them as a
separate to be more accurate."

Finding a solution

Four years ago, Harman said, he and other district officials
lobbied to change the way graduates and dropouts were
calculated.

"We suggested they only count kids who started as a freshman at
the school and stayed until they were seniors to graduate," Harman
said.

This way the graduation rate would not reflect students who just
moved to the school and students who left -- one of the major flaws
of the current system, Harman said.

However, nothing changed and the district has remained reliant
on the state, mainly because of the lack of manpower and funds
available to develop a tracking system, Harman said.

"The state is not giving us money to do any of that," said
Harman. "But, even if we did put millions of dollars into it, I am
convinced we would still not find them all."

In recent years, the state, aware of its problems with
graduation rates and tracking students, has decided to work on a
solution to help districts keep tabs on students at all school
districts statewide by issuing a tracking number to every student
in California.

"It's a step in the right direction," Harman said.

Harman said until the new formula is adopted, little can be
accurately assessed about graduates and dropouts in the
district.

"Without a clear formula, these are not meaningful numbers,"
Harmon said.